Sprout Magazine

Why You Would Never Want a Dragon as a Pet

The House Targaryen keeps its secrets well, and the foremost of those secrets is that keeping dragons is an exercise in futility.

Every man needs a good pet. It shows mastery over something. It shows power. The pet you choose says something about who you are. It represents you.

A dog would be too ordinary. A fish, unpleasant to cuddle. A bird, please, I already have a daughter who never stops talking, why would I want a bird? Cats would be nice but you run the risk of becoming that crazy old guy in the V-neck white shirt, plaid shorts, and black socks. All guys want a monkey, but then there’s the whole poo flinging thing.

With Direwolves gone extinct and Sasquatches being close enough to humanoid that owning one would be borderline slavery, there’s only one option for the ultimate pet: a dragon, right?

Wrong, and here’s why.

Foremost is their diet. Check your folklore. When dragons get big enough to wean off of milk and sheep, what they truly crave is virgins. No wonder House Targaryen is down to its last two members. Anyone in a castle full of dragons who still has their virginity is likely to become the next breakfast for a waking housepet. You’d be unable to form political alliances by betrothing your daughter to a neighboring king’s son because your precious deary will be scarfed up before she hits her sweet sixteen. And if she does manage to survive, she’ll no doubt resent you for keeping her under lock and key just to protect her from your loyal pet. And if you manage to keep your daughter safe from being on the nightly menu, then it means that you’re going to burn through the supply of other virgins in the community. This is sure to set any of your sons in a tizzy about their Facebook friends outliving their real life friends, they complain about how they’ll never find a girl to marry, and the next thing you know they start to resent you as well.

Secondly, you have the trouble of questing knights constantly coming to your home wanting to prove their valor. If you thought it was annoying when your neighbor came over to borrow your barbeque grill again, imagine when he starts coming to behead your little Fluffy. He’ll no doubt try to justify it by claiming that the dragon has been snatching up his cats (he is wearing black socks and plaid shorts, after all) or worse that the dragon has been leaving fewmets on his lawn again. Remember that bag of flaming dog droppings prank from when you were a kid? Well the dragon automatically takes care of lighting it. Trust me, it’s… unpleasant.

Finally, you will never be able to own nice things. A cat sharpening its claws on the back of the couch might be frustrating. A dragon doing the same thing on the back side of the house is positively bedeviling. One soiled carpet and your house burns down. And pray….PRAY that your pet dragon doesn’t for some reason become territorial and decide to mark out what is his. You will never, ever, until-your-entire-lineage-fades-from-existence ever get the smell out.

You will be much better off passing on the dragon. Save your house and your household the trouble and simply choose an inanimate object for your symbol and do without the pets. Unless it happens to be a pet rock.